That was the summer we damned only the earth. That was the summer strange helicopters circled. We examined each other's ears, we spoke with our hands in the air - It is the air. Something in the air wants us too much. On the second day helicopters circle and our legs run in the fever-milk of their own separate silences. A sound we do not hear lifts the birds off the water where a woman takes iron and fire in her mouth. Her husband is trying to make sense of her face, that map of bone and opened valves. The earth is still. The tower guards eat sandwiches. On the third day the soldiers examine ears of bartenders, of accountants, of soldiers, you wouldn't know the wicked things silence does to soldiers. They tear Pasha's wife from her bed like a door off a bus. On the sixth day, we damn only the earth. My soul runs on two naked feet to hear Vasenka. I no longer have words to complain my God and I see nothing in the sky and stare up and clearly I do not know why I am alive. And we enter the city that used to be ours past the theaters and gardens past wooden staircases and wrought iron gates in the morning that puts ringing in our ears. Be courageous, we say but no one is courageous As a sound we do not hear lifts the birds off the water.